


Don't Tell the Kids

by veinsofink



Series: Ay, Mi Amor: Imector One Shots and AUs [2]
Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Fluff, High School Teacher AU, Modern AU, One Shot, Secretly Married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 11:37:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21074273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veinsofink/pseuds/veinsofink
Summary: Based on the "We're rival teachers and half the school ships us, but what no one realizes is that we're already married" AU (Reposted)





	Don't Tell the Kids

**Author's Note:**

> And here's part two! For your reading pleasure, please find the below interaction depicted of me writing this fic
> 
> Me: ah yes, a nice short one-shot to get the idea into words, so relaxing  
Also me: *cranks out 4000 words relentlessly*  
Me: *sips tea, hands shaking* relaxing

It’s a familiar song and dance, the way they tease each other in the halls between classes. For some students, the highlight of the day is listening to the music teacher and the math teacher snipe at each other, and the few minutes between third and fourth period are spent with her students giggling over that day’s exchange.

She can think of a lot of cutting insults to use, but many aren’t school-appropriate, and the simple truth is that she doesn’t hate him as much as the students think she does. Quite the opposite, in fact. 

Imelda leans in the doorway to her classroom and smirks. The bell is about to ring and all of her students are accounted for, so she feels safe as she unabashedly watches him. Héctor sees the last of his students to their seats before he joins her in the hallway. His foot catches in the doorway, and he trips into the hall amidst snickers from his students. She stifles a laugh.

“You’re a walking disaster, Rivera” she says with a hard edge to her voice. She winks at him to soften the blow. “But one day you’ll go far… I hope you stay there.”

A chorus of _Ooooohhh_ erupts behind her, and she hears a boy in the music classroom shout, “Don’t listen to her, Señor Rivera!”

Héctor glances over his shoulder, making sure none of the students have a view of the interaction. He leans his torso closer to her, and his sharp tone belies his gentle smile as he says, “Mighty words, Díaz. And may I say that you’re looking positively grim today? How many kids did you send to early graves from boredom?”

“At least I’m teaching them something useful_,_” she snarks.

Héctor’s class gasps in unison, dissolving into snickers only a second later. He gives her a wounded look, and she mouths, _It’s a joke!_ to him.

“Useful?” he responds in exaggerated offense. “Yes, all that _useful_ math that I have used _so much_ since school! What would my budget be without ninety-degree angles? And let’s not forget, it would have been impossible to get a mortgage without those parallelograms!”

Both classes are now goading them on, and Imelda knows it’s time to wrap this up and get back to her class, but she _loves_ these few moments where. She can’t resist one last barb.

“Whatever, Rivera,” she says, pushing away from the doorway and taking hold of the handle. “I’ll stay out of your music foolishness as long as you keep your big nose out of my business.”

With that, she closes the door before he can come up with a retort, but she sees him mouth the words _Te amo _just before she loses sight of him.

Half an hour later, as her class is getting a head start on their homework, she checks her phone and finds a message from Héctor.

**You really think my nose is big?? :(**

She rolls her eyes and taps out a quick response. **You KNOW it’s big, querido.**

His next response is a series of eye-rolling emojis, but he doesn’t deny it. She thinks she sees one student watching her, so she wipes the smile from her face and hides the phone before any suspicions arise.

~~~

“Abril and Natalia asked me today if we’re dating,” is the first thing she hears when she gets home. She’d left a few minutes after him today, staggering their departure as usual so as to not draw attention to their _togetherness. _Héctor always says that she overthinks, that some teenagers wouldn’t notice two teachers going in the same direction, but if Imelda doesn’t consider every possibility, she’ll lose her mind. So, they drive to work separately, which isn’t very economical, but it eases her nerves a little.

It’s not like it’s a bad thing that they’re together and in love and _married_; all the other teachers know about their relationship and give them no small amount of teasing in the lounge. But it had been awkward, those first few months of dating, when Héctor was in his first year at the school and so nervous around her. It had been safer not to let any of the students know about them– not that it was any of their business to begin with. 

But then they got more serious, and he confessed his feelings, and Imelda realized that she had accidentally fallen in love with a coworker. They spent nearly every day of the summer together, and when school was back in session, Imelda’s classroom was moved to the one across from Héctor’s. And that’s when the taunting started.

All the other teachers called it for what is was, but to their students, an unforeseen animosity had formed between two of their most beloved teachers, and Imelda and Héctor expertly hid their flirting under sarcasm and barbs.

By the end of the next summer, they were married and still hadn’t broached the subject of making their relationship public. It would have to happen eventually, of course it would, but Imelda had never felt like the time was right. 

She sets her bag on a barstool and joins him in the kitchen. He’s already cutting up some peppers to go with dinner, and he automatically lowers himself to meet her height as she leans in to kiss his cheek. She grabs another knife out of the drawer to chop an onion. “What made them ask?” she wonders, thinking back over their interactions of the day. She’d thought they were pretty mild by most standards.

Héctor shrugs. “I don’t think it’s necessarily because of anything we _did_. They just think it would be… I don’t know, cute? You know half the student body wants us to be a ‘thing.’”

Imelda hums. “And what did you tell them?”

“That you would hit me with your shoe if I dared to ask you out.” He winks, and Imelda bursts into a fit of giggles, remembering the time she really _did_ hit him with her shoe.

To be fair, he had come up behind her so quietly, and she hadn’t realized she wasn’t the last person in the school that day. So when, locking up her classroom for the day to head home, a man’s voice said from behind her “_HeyImeldadoyouwanttogooutsometime?!” _she had done the only natural thing: she dropped everything, whipped off her boot, and immediately turned to swing it across the perp’s face. It registered a second too late that the man speaking was the cute, awkward new music teacher and not some freak who broke into the building after all the other staff had left to, evidently, ask her on a date. She’d felt so bad that, after ensuring that his nose wasn’t bleeding or broken, she bought him dinner. Héctor still insists that it wasn’t really their first date, but they both know it was.

Imelda scoops the already cut vegetables into a pan and places it on the stove. “I think every single one of our students would keel over if we told them we were a ‘thing,’ as you put it,” she tells him, still chuckling over the memory.

“Not to mention that said thing has been going on for over three years and resulted in a lifelong sentence,” Héctor says with a ridiculous grin, wiggling his ring finger in his face. His wedding ring sparkles there; he always remembers to put it on as soon as he gets home. Hers tends to sit in her purse until well after dinner and she remembers that it hasn’t been on her hand the whole time.

She rolls her eyes and bumps her hip against his as she passes. They fall into a comfortable silence, her keeping an eye on the sizzling pans while he washes the few dishes and pulls plates down from the cupboard. Soon after, as she’s setting out some tortillas to heat in the oven, she feels a pair of arms wrap around her waist. She leans into her husband’s embrace as his chin rests on her shoulder. He’s being unusually quiet, not even humming a tune or tapping his foot. Imelda furrows her brow and puts her hand over his. 

“Is something wrong, cariño?” she murmurs.

She feels him shrug, then pause. There’s the slightest bit of tension in his muscles as her fingers run over the veins in his arms. “I just…” he stops, then takes a big breath and rushes out, “Don’t you think we should consider telling the whole school?”

Imelda pauses her movements, then purses her lips. “Now, you mean?”

“Well, yeah,” he says nervously. His grip tightens. “I mean, I get _why_ we didn’t tell them at first, because if it didn’t work out or we had a messy break up, then all those kids would know and it would be weird, and of course it wasn’t really any of their business–”

“You’re rambling, Héctor.”

He takes a breath and seems to gather his thoughts. Imelda takes the moment to move the food from the heat and turns in his arms. She winds her hands behind his neck and waits for him to speak. When he does, his voice is lower and calmer. 

“What I mean is, it’s been three years. We clearly haven’t changed our minds. I don’t see that changing anytime soon, or ever.” He looks to her hopefully, and she reads the question there. And what a dumb question it is; why would she ever change her mind about the sweetest man she had ever known?

“And…” she prompts him to continue. She knows where he’s going with this, but she wants to hear him say it.

“And… I’m tired of hiding.” His lips twist in a smile. “Really, why shouldn’t the school know that we love each other?”

Imelda plays with the hair at the nape of his neck while she forms an answer. “I understand,” she says after a long pause. “And I want to tell them too, just… not now.”

Héctor visibly deflates, and she rushes to clarify: “Not because I have any doubts about us or about if we should tell them at all, just the _timing._” She holds his gaze and forces a smile, trying to convince herself that she’s not deflecting.“You know as well as I do that as soon as we tell the students, all hell will break loose. There won’t be a single productive day for the rest of the year, not as long as we’ve kept this from them.”

He doesn’t look happy about it, but he nods. Imelda rises to her toes and brushes her lips over his, barely touching in a teasing kiss. Héctor relaxes and tries to deepen the kiss, but she pulls back and puts a finger to his mouth. His eyes widen, and he starts to look almost offended that she would deny him this, but she smiles and continues, “If you can make it the last two months of school without giving us away, we can tell them on the last day, after exams are over and they’re about to leave for the summer. ¿Suena bien?”

He rolls his eyes. “Fine. But what makes you think I’ll be the one to slip up?”

“You’re horrible at secrets. I knew you were planning to propose to me weeks before you said anything.”

“Because you found the ring while were _snooping_ in my things!”

“I was looking for tape! You really want to tell me that your crap drawer was the best hiding place you could think of?”

Héctor grumbles something under his breath, and she wiggles away from him to finish cooking their dinner, but not before he manages to claim her lips in a searing kiss. 

~~~

The end of the school year creeps up on them, and Héctor begins scheming all the ways they could make their big announcement to the school. He wants to stage it as a prank of some kind, maybe write a song to go along with it while he pretends to be head over heels in love with her (which is less acting and more exaggerating). He also considers “proposing” to her in the middle of the hallway, but Imelda shoots that one down immediately. She would rather just make a simple announcement during their last morning assembly, but she doesn’t have time to think about the details.

She thinks of herself as a fair teacher, and with only two weeks until final exams, all of her classes are in full-panic mode. She wrapped up the final chapters of their textbooks early and has been focusing only on reviewing the most essential lessons so that everyone will be prepared for the final coming up. 

On this particular day, she’s sitting at her desk during lunch with a stack of review papers in front of her. Most days, she would go to the teacher’s lounge, but she’s confining herself to work on her papers today, and Héctor has joined her. He peels a tangerine and idly throws out more suggestions for telling the school about their marriage. Imelda is only half listening while she looks over her students’ work, her lunch sitting untouched beside her.

“If you want to be understated about it, we could just surprise them with one of our wedding pictures,” he throws out once. Imelda pauses and looks at him incredulously.

“That’s private, Héctor.”

“How is it so private?” He looks genuinely confused. “People show their wedding pictures all the time! And besides, all of our family and friends were there, and most of the staff from school were, too. Literally everyone except the kids know.”

She shakes her head and goes back to reading the chicken scratch in front of her. It’s hard enough trying to read this boy’s handwriting, but what method is he even using? She barely remembers to respond to her husband. “I don’t know, Héctor, it just feels… weird.”

He sighs and goes silent. His watch beeps only a few minutes later, and he pulls his feet off the desk they’re resting on. “They’ll be back from lunch soon. Better leave before they get suspicious,” he says, shuffling up beside her. 

“Mmm, sí_._ I’ll see you at home,” she says absently. 

She can practically feel him pouting as he rests his arms on her desk, getting as close as he dares without blocking her work. “Can’t I get a kiss before I go, mi amor?”

Her frustration bubbles over when she sees the answer her student wrote. “The answer is forty-two, _how _Daniel getting–”

“_Imeldaaaaaa.”_

“What– oh, yes, of course.” She turns her head, not even looking up from the paper as she attempts to give Héctor the kiss he apparently can’t live without. She misses his mouth and hits his cheek instead, but he sighs and doesn’t try to ask again. 

He rises and leaves a kiss on the top of her head, retreating to his own classroom with a parting, “See you at home, Señora Rivera.” She doesn’t have time to scold him for using the wrong name; the bell rings then and students begin to filter back in from the cafeteria. 

Imelda puts her grading away and makes her way to the whiteboard, planning out an agenda for the class based on what they have been struggling with the most. She’s just about to start class when the last group of students arrive, all giggling and talking in conspiratorial whispers. She narrows her eyes and turns to face them.

“What’s so funny, niños?” she says in her friendliest voice. 

“Señor Rivera has a lipstick mark on his cheek!” one girl says excitedly, still looking at her friends. The rest of the students all turn around to look at her, clamoring for the details of what they saw.

Imelda’s heart drops straight to her shoes. 

“Yeah, I saw it!” a boy says. “It was purple, right here.” He points to his left cheek, just shy of the corner of his grinning mouth.

She thinks she’s going to pass out. Her heart is hammering and she thinks she should turn around to face the board, wipe off her lipstick on the back of her hand or _something_ but she’s frozen in place and–

One girl is suddenly watching her and she gasps. Then she breaks into a new round of giggles, a hand clapping over her mouth and her eyes alight with glee. Each student then turns to see what she sees, and one by one, Imelda watches twenty fifteen-year-olds connect the dots, sees the exact moment they match her lipstick to the mark on Héctor’s face.

She wants the floor to open up and swallow her. She prays for a surprise fire drill, or a power outage, or a city-terrorizing monster, anything to get her out of this nightmare.

In five seconds flat, hell breaks loose.

Several boys are shouting, “_Are you serious?!”_ A couple more kids are screaming, “I knew it! I knew it!” Several more voices rise above those, all trying to make themselves heard to express their astonishment. 

The commotion draws the attention of the surrounding classes. Héctor is the first to come to her doorway, eyes widened at how it has crumbled into complete chaos. She looks at him with panic on her face and– _oh, Dios mio_, she can see the lipstick on his face. It looks like he has just begun to wipe it away, but it only smears a purple streak across his jaw and _she really thinks she’s going to pass out_–

“¡¿Qué está pasando?!” he shouts over twenty other voices. It only draws the students’ attention, and the noise swells as they all see the evidence for themselves. 

For the first time in her entire career, Imelda has lost control of her class. Not a single one is sitting anymore, and some are screaming, “DÍAZ KISSED RIVERA, DÍAZ KISSED RIVERA!” It’s as one boy is climbing onto his desk that Imelda comes back to herself.

“Tómas, get down from there _right now!_” Her voice rings out, as sharp as a cracking whip. The noise lulls just long enough for her to shout, “The rest of you, _silencio! ¡Basta!”_

Properly chastened, the students seem to shrink into themselves and the ones that are still standing slink to their seats. No one makes eye contact with her, but she can sense their itching desire to. Her heart feels like it might claw right out of her chest if she doesn’t leave the room right now.

“Un momento,” she mumbles, and she strides through the aisle right to the door, where Héctor still stands, dumbstruck. She pushes him into the hall and pulls the door closed behind her, which will probably only fuel the gossip, but she needs this moment of privacy. Héctor takes the chance to close his door as well, amidst confused remarks from his own class that go unanswered. Imelda sees Señora Gutiérrez’s head poking out of a door down the hall, but Héctor waves her off. The door closes, and they are finally, quietly alone.

Imelda leans against the wall and takes a deep, shaking breath. “So… my class knows I kissed you. What does yours know?”

Héctor clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck nervously. “Ah… just that _someone_ kissed me. Not necessarily you, but…” 

“But gossip spreads like wildfire around here, and someone probably heard _Díaz kissed Rivera_, thanks to Camila and Andrés.”

He breathes a sigh. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay, you know? We’ll think of some explanation, make the announcement tomorrow in assembly. But it _will_ be okay, sí?” He tips her chin up so she’s looking at him. His brows are furrowed, and he looks just as embarrassed as she feels after that little scene in her class. He still looks ridiculous with a smudge of purple lipstick on his face. She uses her sleeve to wipe it away, thankful for the black shirt she chose today; it doesn’t fully wipe away, but it’s harder to tell why his face is tinted purple.

“I know,” she whispers. She sags against the wall. “I know, I just… wish we had more control over it.” A thought strikes her, and she groans. “All this time, I thought you would be the one to give us away.”

He smirks. “And who ended up doing that instead?” he gloats.

She levels a glare at him, refusing to give in. “My lipstick, in its brief stint as a sentient being.”

“Prideful as ever, I see, mi amor.”

He kisses her forehead, and once they’re sure they’re ready to face their classes again, they part ways. Imelda sees twenty heads hastily turn to face the front of the room and pretend like they weren’t straining to hear a private conversation. 

She clears her throat and immediately orders them to open their books. She carries on with the lesson as if nothing is out of the ordinary, but there’s a tense energy that settles like a fog over the class.

The next two classes after that are much the same, the word of what happened already spreading throughout the upper level classes, though no one dares mention it to Imelda. But they all seem _very_ interested in watching Imelda and Héctor as they watch the classes change. She doesn’t have any jibes today, her energy sapped, and he can only shrug helplessly at her.

When the final bell rings and every student has gone home, Imelda groans and rests her head on her desk. Four different teachers pop into her classroom to ask about the rumors they heard, about the screaming coming from this part of the hall, but she doesn’t have the energy to explain and sends them to Héctor. He seems to be handling it much better than she is and she hears laughter coming from across the hall, though no one teases her about it. Everyone seems to know that this is her special version of hell. 

They leave at the same time that day, Imelda finally deciding that the pretending is no longer worth the effort, and they arrive in the same car the next morning. Héctor says he’s got it all taken care of, that she shouldn’t worry a bit, but she’s panicking. She knows, logically, that there’s really nothing to fear; the opinions of a couple hundred teenagers about her marital status really doesn’t matter in the end. If she’s being honest, she doesn’t know _what_ she’s scared of, just that her carefully formed plans have essentially become a dumpster fire and there’s nothing she can do about it. 

It’s Friday, so they have morning assembly in the gymnasium. Imelda sits next to Héctor and the other teachers, and she can feel every single eye on the back of her head. Students she’s never taught, never even spoken to are staring at her. Overnight the whole school has heard what happened.

Héctor takes it in stride. He doesn’t make any efforts to hide anymore, knowing it would be a vain effort. He’d held her hand all the way into the school and to assembly, only holding on tighter when she tries to pull away in front of the students. He still holds it now, squeezing it reassuringly even though her palms are probably sweating and she has _no _idea what’s going to happen today.

The director goes through the normal weekly announcements and then goes over the exam schedule for next week, as well as the usual end-of-year procedures. He pauses at the end, and it’s like everyone knows what’s coming next. The teachers all glance at Imelda and Héctor from the corners of their eyes, and she thinks she sees every student lean forward in their seats.

“There is one more thing to address,” the director says, and she hears the note of laughter he’s trying to hold back. “Señor Rivera?”

Héctor stands and pulls Imelda up with him to face the crowd. She pales and tries to wiggle back into her seat, but he puts his arm around her waist and holds her close. She sees the grins on every face in front of her, even the ones that would never admit to being amused by the event playing out before them. They all look like hungry sharks, and she’s their prey.

“I’m sure you’ve all heard by now about the, ah, shall we say, _unusual _events of yesterday.” Héctor, though naturally shy, speaks with complete confidence. His voice carries over the crowd with no need for a microphone. “I won’t try to explain what happened; I only have an introduction to make.”

No. Oh, no, that _cabrón, he should have told her–_

“Ladies and gentleman,” Héctor says around a smile, and he pauses for dramatic effect. “It is my great honor to introduce to you… _Señora Rivera!_

The assembly erupts into screams and cheers, and as soon as she sees the massive grins on her students’ faces, Imelda’s fear melts away. This is good. This has always been _good_ and she kicks herself for not letting Héctor make the announcement sooner.

She looks up at him and matches his smile. Her face is flushed, and everyone is watching, but he shamelessly kisses her in front of their whole school– just a peck on the lips, but the reaction they get is that deserving of something far less appropriate for public company. 

But in that moment, she can’t bring herself to care.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
